Descend then from your lofty seat,
Behold th’ attending Muses wait
            With us to sing your praises;
Calliope now strings up her lyre,
And Clio[7] Phoebus does inspire,
The theme their fancy raises.

If then our nursery you will nourish,
We and our Muses too will flourish,
           Encouraged by your favour;
We’ll doctrines teach the times to serve,
And more five thousand pounds deserve,
           By future good behaviour.

Now take our harp into your hand,
The joyful strings, at your command,
           In doleful sounds no more shall mourn. 
We, with sincerity of heart,
To all your tunes shall bear a part,
            Unless we see the tables turn.

If so, great sir, you will excuse us,
For we and our attending Muses
           May live to change our strain;
And turn, with merry hearts, our tune,
Upon some happy tenth of June,
          To “the king enjoys his own again.”

[Footnote 1:  Dr. Pratt’s speech, which is here parodied, was made when the Duke of Ormond, Swift’s valued friend, was attainted, and superseded in the office of chancellor of Trinity College, which he had held from 1688-9, by the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II.

There is great reason to suppose that the satire is the work of Swift, whose attachment to Ormond was uniformly ardent.  Of this it may be worth while to mention a trifling instance.  The duke had presented to the cathedral of St. Patrick’s a superb organ, surmounted by his own armorial bearings.  It was placed facing the nave of the church.  But after Ormond’s attainder, Swift, as Dean of St. Patrick’s, received orders from government to remove the scutcheon from the church.  He obeyed, but he placed the shield in the great aisle, where he himself and Stella lie buried, and where the arms still remain.  The verses have suffered much by the inaccuracy of the noble transcriber, Lord Newtoun Butler.

The original speech will be found in the London Gazette of Tuesday,
April 17, 1716, and Scott’s edition of Swift, vol. xii, p. 352.  The
Provost, it appears, was attended by the Rev. Dr. Howard, and Mr. George
Berkeley, (afterwards Bishop of Cloyne,) both of them fellows of Trinity
College, Dublin.  The speech was praised by Addison, in the Freeholder,
No. 33.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 2:  The Rev. Dr. Pratt had been formerly of the Tory party; to which circumstance the phrase, “from this day well-affected,” alludes.—­Scott.]

[Footnote 3:  The statutes of the university enjoin celibacy.—­Scott.]

[Footnote 4:  The provost was a most constant attendant at the levees at St. James’s palace.—­Scott.]

[Footnote 5:  The see of Killaloe was then vacant, and to this bishopric the Reverend Dr. George Carr, chaplain to the Irish House of Commons, was nominated, by letters-patent.—­Scott.]